Mar-a-Lago - Election day is here, and as votes for the next president of the United States are being cast and counted some experts are weighing in on Donald Trump's next move should he win or lose. Trump, shown here pointing at the sky and saying "Hey, is that a UFO?" to distract a Secret Service agent from a loud shart "I think we all know what happens if Trump wins the election," Paula White, president of Paula White Ministries and Trump's spiritual advisor, explained. "God's chosen will lead us to glory after just a bit of societal upheaval from a brief economic collapse. And if he loses, then I have some serious thinking to do. I would be forced to question every..no, I'm just playin'. Only way he loses is if they cheated, because even God has no power over election fraud." Could Trump be raptured, as some people are claiming, in the event of an election loss? According to one anonymous campaign insider, there is a decent chance that he could be suddenly called up to Heaven. "So many people mention the Rapture. That beautiful but simple word -- Rapture. 'Sir, the Rapture.' You don't think of it that way but that's what they mention more than anything -- 'the Rapture.' And people are saying that I've done, I mean that Trump, who is me, has done more for God than any other president. And Trump is definitely going to rise up into the sky if it isn't looking good, maybe from God or in an airplane, and disappear somewhere. And it could be Heaven or a kind of Heaven, like Venezuela."

Montpelier, VT - As millions of Americans begin the difficult process of coming to terms with the results of the presidential election, with some fearing the worst for the country, one voice is cutting through the grief and anger with needed words of reassurance. Bartram, shown here confused by how the women at work today were acting so despondent because he remembers how bad the Bush administration was and the world didn't end "I'm as upset as the next guy," Clark Bartram, a straight white cisgender male accountant from Montpelier, explained to a gathering crowd earlier today. "Like I told my two sons last night when MSNBC called Pennsylvania for Trump, just hang in there guys. Then they had nice chats with their Canadian girlfriends and went to bed." For many supporters of Kamala Harris, the Trump victory came as a complete shock given the apparent excitement and recent polling. According to Bartram, politics is often full of surprises. "Winners can be hard to predict and we lost this round, but the fight isn't over. Focus on tomorrow and don't let emotion get the better of you."

Baton Rouge, LA- Researchers at the Louisiana State University School of Veterinary Medicine recently announced the findings of a year-long study on feline health, sending shock waves throughout the veterinary community. The key finding of the report, which focused on markers of health and associated mortality rates, was that over a third of adult cats are now curious, with ten percent meeting criteria for severe curiosity. Whiskers McTango, shown here moments before dying from asphyxiation as a result of class 3 curiosity "We have known for a long time that curiosity rates, even severe (class 3) curiosity, were on the rise," lead researcher and feline neuropsychiatrist Mort Fishman explained. "But to find that in some communities, particularly rural areas with a high prevalence of small rodents and hopping insects, that nearly half of kittens are above the 95th percentile for curiosity was upsetting to say the least." Veterinarians have been seeing increasing rates of curiosity and related injuries for years, and there has been a significant movement among primary care vets to screen kittens for the condition in order to institute lifestyle modifications and even pharmaceutical interventions as early as possible. The most commonly used marker, the FCI or Feline Curiosity Index, which is a simple index of friskiness-for-volume, allows veterinarians to focus on those cats that are most at risk of complications. But there are some experts who believe that the FCI is a poor indicator of overall health, and its use is fraught with false positives. "Frankly, the FCI is bullshit," Joni Hasselhoff, a Canadian veterinarian who specializes in curiosity revealed. "It is a sloppy means of screening large populations and worthless when used on an individual basis, especially as a goal. Some cats are simply more aloof, which might raise the FCI without actually equating to higher levels of curiosity." Even when the diagnosis is clear, there is controversy regarding the management of curious and severely curious cats and kittens. Over the past few years, most veterinarians have fallen into one of two camps: Those who recommend aggressive lifestyle modification in the form of intradomicile containment and those who believe that early drug therapy is more effective in saving lives. Abbott Laboratories brought apathoperidol, marketed as CurioCure, a drug which suppresses curiosity by blocking the neurotransmitter dopamine, to the market in 2010. Still, a small but increasingly vocal third group endorse a more natural approach. So-called holistic or integrative veterinarians believe that locking a cat inside is unnecessary and that the risks of drug therapy outweigh the benefits. They recommend approaches that combine modalities such as feline massage, acupuncture, and catnip enemas in order to restore a healthy energy balance and replace unhealthy curiosity with more of an adorable inquisitiveness.

Studio City, CA - In an effort to better represent the beliefs and lifestyles of its viewers, Hallmark Channel has announced that it will produce their first romantic comedy to focus on far-right conservative Trump supporters. A scene from Your Heart, My Choice where Mike and Rebecca go on a date and learn how to protect children from trans grooming kindergarten teachers "Many, if not most, of our long-time viewers are MAGA Republicans living in red states," Hallmark Media president and CEO Mike Perry explained. "Over the past few years, we have been focusing on expanding into more liberal living rooms with movies featuring characters from non-traditional backgrounds, even a couple gay ones and that black lady who solves mysteries, but it's time to reassure that core audience. Yes, all viewers matter at Hallmark Media." The movie, titled Your Heart, My Choice , will open with the January 6th tour of the U.S. Capitol in 2021. Mike and Rebecca, two patriots striving to save our country from the tyranny of a Joe Biden presidency, will have an adorable meet-cute in front of Nancy Pelosi's office but unfair circumstances will tear them apart. According to Perry, the movie will resonate with a majority of Hallmark fans. "Will a pardon from Donald Trump lead to romantic reunion? Will Mike be able to "stop the steal" of Rebecca's heart by a liberal snowflake beta male? How many brown people will Mike's deputized homegrown militia group round up for deportation? You'll just have to tune in to find out."

Washington, D.C. - As President-elect Trump prepares for his second term, one of the most controversial choices for a high-ranking leadership position in his administration might just be Krampus. Krampus, shown here at Mar-a-Lago after meeting with Donal Trump earlier this week, denies touching the underage children he tortures and consumes inappropriately "Krampus is a demon known for beating children with birch branches before dragging them to his lair in a large sack," Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer explained. "This is not an entity that should be allowed access to these hallowed halls. And I can promise you that we will not allow his confirmation without a fight, or at least a very strongly worded letter." For millennia, Krampus has existed within the nightmares of children all over the world, emerging on December 5th to gather up and consume any that he has deemed naughty. According to the half-goat, half-demon monster, his prior experience punishing children who don't respect their parents has prepared him for a high-level cabinet position or whatever else the President-elect has in mind. "It warms the cockles of my blackened heart just to be considered and I"m looking forward to helping in any way I can, whether it's saving Christmas from the liberals or as Attorney General. What? Would you prefer Gaetz? I may send those kids to Hell but I don't, you know, do anything...sexual with them."

Cambridge, MA - Theoretical mathematicians near Harvard have announced the discovery of a new candidate for the world's biggest number. Mathematician Geraldine Grogan, shown here demonstrating a profound understanding of improbably big numbers while the intricacies of life's greatest mystery, the inner workings of the human heart, escape her grasp "It's a really, really big number," Geraldine Grogan, Chief of Math at the Dunkin' Institute for the Study of Numbers, explained. "Think of the biggest number you know. Hold it in your mind. Got it? This one is bigger. A lot bigger." Grogan, a mathematician who fell in love with big numbers as a young child when she first learned about eleven, is used to skepticism when it comes to communicating the science behind them to the public. "I wish I had a microBitcoin for every time someone asked me why I don't just add one to the biggest number to get a new biggest number. But it's just not that simple!" Discovering new and bigger numbers has become increasingly difficult over the past few decades, with announcements like this now coming every few years rather than several each day. Abacus Wilmore, a math historian who has written about numbers since the early 1970s, remembers a time when big number researchers were treated like rock stars. "You had five or six new big ones a day back then, and people just went nuts over it. Then the numbers started drying up and people got competitive. It got ugly. And the cocaine didn't help." The addition of a new biggest number to our understanding of the natural world is unlikely to have a noticeable impact on the day-to-day lives of most people. Grogan, who is the granddaughter of James Grogan, the first person to spell "boobies" using an upside down calculator, says that practical applications are not the point of big numbers. "What is the practical application of a beautiful painting or a poem? Big numbers add beauty to our lives and they subtract suffering. Did you see what I did there?"

Miami, FL - Experts from the Miami Police Department's Sleep Victims Unit (SVU) have issued a warning to the public over the dangers of improperly handling tryptophan during the preparation and consumption of turkey this holiday season. Miami tryptophan victim Paula Myrtleson, shown here finishing a second bottle of wine before polishing off an entire turkey, would go on to sleep through a full season of The Great British Baking Show on Netflix "Everybody loves to have turkey served at these special occasion meals," Police somnologist and SVU Chief Mort Fishman, MD, explained. "But if you don't take the right precautions, you are going to be passed out on the couch before granny serves her famous sweet potato pie and Uncle Steve starts complaining about immigrants again." Tryptophan is an amino acid. Though not as well-known as the bananamino and obamamino acids, amino acids function as building blocks in the formation of proteins required for a variety of important life-sustaining processes like enzyme activity, immune responses, metabolism, and watching television. Tryptophan serves an important role in cell membranes and is a biochemical precursor for melatonin, a powerful sedative found in a number of over-the-counter herbal remedies and health supplements. The Miami Police Department's SVU was established last year when Dr. Fishman got really tired after eating six Swanson's individual turkey pot pies on an overnight stakeout. According to Fishman, he didn't want others to suffer the same fate. "I didn't wear gloves or even use a fork, I just held them in my hands and the contaminated sauce got everywhere. I'm urging anyone who comes into contact with tryptophan, even if only a small amount splatters on their skin, to bring the pot pie, or whatever the source happens to be, directly to our lab for safe analysis and disposal."

Philadelphia, PA- Chaos broke out today at the studios of WHYY-FM in Philadelphia when a caller refused to turn down his radio resulting in a tear in the very fabric of space and time, and the death or disappearance of hundreds of studio employees. Fresh Air host Terry Gross, shown here mere seconds before evaporating into quantum foam, possibly because of the appearance of a strangelet in her recording studio “I don’t know what the heck happened over there”, Rick from Tuscon explained. “One minute I’m asking that guy from Ted Lasso where he got his motivation from and then suddenly all hell is breaking loose.” Scientists are scrambling to piece together what may have happened, and are thus far baffled as to why many of the people working at WHYY-FM that day are now dead or missing without a trace. Theoretical physicist Michio Kaku of the City University of New York believes that there are a number of possible explanations. “The infinite feedback loop caused by the callers radio may have somehow elevated the harmonics of the missing individuals, carrying them fully, or perhaps only partially, into a higher dimension. Also this may just be a big coincidence and a black hole simply formed in the middle of the building. This isn't an exact science.” Maggi Leyden, Executive director of Donor Relations at WHYY-FM and one of the few survivors of the horrific event, remains hopeful about the future of public radio. “I can’t say that I’ll ever truly get over seeing Dave Davies being ripped in half at the waist, but I can say that now would be the perfect time for listeners out there to support their local NPR stations. Unfortunately all our tote bags are covered in liquefied interns.”

Fremont, CA - Elon Musk, the billionaire social media user, business purchaser, and head of President-elect Trump's new Department of Government Efficiency, has announced that he is close to making one of the greatest sources of biological inefficiency a thing of the past. Neuralink test subject 345A "Sir Silly Britches", shown here one week after rebooting and just prior to eating a lab techs face, will serve as an animal ambassador for the project once he can be located "I was honored when President Trump tasked me with solving the problem of governmental waste," Musk explained. "But I had to ask myself what I was going to do with the other twenty three hours and thirty minutes of my day. And then it came to me. What if I also focused on reversing the ultimate cause of lost productivity? What if I put an end to death itself?" Musk has been an expert on neurotechnology, and the use of implantable brain-computer interfaces (BCI) to treat neurological disorders, ever since he learned that two neuroscientists were working on it in 2016. He courageously bought the rights to the Neuralink name and immediately began supervising a team of scientists and engineers as they worked on the project. Though initially designed to help with problems such as paralysis and blindness, the genius idea collector claims that this powerful system will one day allow workers in a variety of employment sectors to continue in their current role long after the brain's ability to maintain voluntary purposeful action has been lost. "Neuralink will initiate a reboot and take over once the initial version of an employee has gone offline," Musk revealed. "At that point, as long as there hasn't been any significant damage to the spinal cord and musculoskeletal system, work-related activity can resume with guidance from Neuralink AI, but only until the unit's shell has degraded beyond a certain point. But we are working on that problem." Neuralink Corp., is counting on a combination of both the desire to continue providing for family after death, by earning a percentage of their previous salary, and government mandates to ensure that millions of Americans will undergo the implantation process once testing has confirmed reasonable effectiveness. According to CEO Jared Birchall, support from the Trump administration will be key from a logistical and motivational standpoint. "It would be a huge confidence boost after so many people mocked us for all the regulatory rejections and animal murders. Alleged animal murders. Who said murder? I didn't say murder. Those monkeys were dead when we found them!"

Maurice, LA -  Using recovered DNA to "genetically resurrect" an extinct species sounds like the plot of a science fiction novel written by Michael Crichton, but scientists at a genetics lab in Vermilion Parish are moving closer to making this fiction a reality by bringing back the wild turducken thousands of years after the last of the unusual bird hybrids disappeared from the swamps of South Louisiana. Celebrity Chef Gerry Firebottom, shown here next to a modern turducken culinary recreation in the kitchen of his flagship Las Vegas restaurant: Firebottom's Flavorblaster Express Train to Flavor City, USA and Grill Thanks to generous donations from Louisiana State University and Boudreaux's Meat and Seafood Market, Cajun biologist Pirogue Mamou, known for his pioneering work in nutria mating habits, believes that his lab will soon take the first steps into a new era where the majestic turducken's gobbles, quacks, and clucks can once again be heard throughout the bayous and other waterways of the Deep South. "This has been a dream of mine ever since my MawMaw first told me about them turduckens back when I was juste un petit enfant." What many people don't realize is that the turducken currently served on Thanksgiving and Christmas platters around the country is actually a culinary mash-up first popularized by Chef Paul Prudhomme in the 1980s and isn't a wild turducken. Instead, this holiday meal showstopper is created by stuffing a deboned chicken inside of a deboned duck and then stuffing both inside of a deboned turkey, often with cornbread dressing or pork stuffing added between the layers. It's delicious, but it never actually lived in the wild and strutted, waddled, or did that awkward thing where chickens hop around and flap their wings. The work being proposed by Dr. Mamou involves a hybrid created with the help of CRISPR-Cas9, a gene-editing tool that can splice bits of DNA recovered from frozen turducken specimens into a wild turkey, the turducken's closest living relative. The resulting animal, which is being called the chidurckey, won't be a true turducken in the genetic sense, but it would theoretically look and behave like one. And most importantly, it would taste like one. "First we created a turkey with a duck inside of it, mais c'était facile cher," Mamou explained. "The final hurdle will be much trickier, but with the gene editing capabilities of CRISPR-Cas9 we are now very close to that thing being born with a chicken up its ass." Despite the promise of the return of the turducken, not all experts are on board. Some, like vertebrate paleontologist Beatrice Downer, see promise in perfecting the early steps of the process but question whether the turducken is a worthwhile focus for the technology. "Even if the researchers in Louisiana can bring back turduckens, and it isn't entirely clear that this will be successful, I have to ask...should they? Should they do this when there are so many delicious species that are still around but currently endangered, like the cowpigen or the Appalachian flying squirrel." Dr. Mamou isn't planning on letting the objections of other scientists slow down research that he sees as extremely important and highly personal. "Who are they to decide which species is more deserving of existence? Or whose culture is more deserving of a chance to return to its roots? They can do their own work and leave the turduckens to me and my team down here on the bayou. Laisse-nous tranquille!"

New York City - The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) has announced an epic crossover event involving two of the network's most popular prime time programs planned for early 2025. A tense scene from the latest episode of Hider where the titular character is cornered in a small town library "When it comes to both action and suspense, you can't get much bigger than Hider and Seeker ," NBCUniversal interim CEO Mike Cavanaugh explained. "So it's a pretty big deal that these two are going to maybe share the screen for a few hour. A pretty damn big deal." Hider , in it's seventh season, takes the viewer through the ups and downs in the life of Steven Hider, who is on the run from authorities around the world after being framed for his family's murder and the theft of sensitive government documents. According to Cavanaugh, Seeker is an action-packed adrenaline-fueled thrill ride where professional finder Maxine Seeker searches for the world's most important missing persons. "Both of these shows have been hits for several seasons and I low-key feel like an idiot for taking so long to get them together." Hider and Seeker are two of the biggest hits that NBC has had in years, routinely pulling in million of viewers each episode. The buzz around the crossover event has taken social media by storm, and Cavanaugh and his team at NBC are expecting big results. "We are predicting that this multi-episode arc will have more viewers than the reboot of the Magnum, P.I. reboot on CBS did in 2019. I honestly haven't been this excited about a TV show since the team from Chicago Med went to space to take out that alien's appendix."

Morris, AL - As President-elect Trump's promised tariffs on goods imported from Canada and Mexico loom on the horizon, some consumers have begun to stock up on their favorite items before prices skyrocket. Mike Singleberry, shown here learning about vaccine science from an episode of The Joe Rogan Experience, right before ordering a 50-gallon drum of maple syrup from Quebec "I love guacamole," Trump supporter Mike Singleberry explained. "I'm buying as many crates of avocados as I can get my hands on now and just putting them down in the basement so I can have chips and guac whenever I want without breaking the bank. Wait, where do chips come from?" Though frequently discussed by Trump as a way to influence the behavior of other counties, many Republican voters are only looking into the potential repercussions of tariffs here at home now that the election has been decided in his favor. According to 28-year-old first time voter Singleberry, the road to a better future is paved with hard work and sacrifice. "Trump didn't say that making America great again would be easy. He said that brown people were eating our cats and schools were doing sex changes on kids during recess."